This is a discussion on [PATCH] ARCH 2.6.25.y: Fix 32-bit x86 MSI-X allocation leakage - Kernel ; Resend now that this patch is in -upstream.
This bug was introduced in the 2.6.24 i386/x86_64 tree merge, where
MSI-X vector allocation will eventually fail. The cause is the new
bit array tracking used vectors is not getting cleared properly ...

[PATCH] ARCH 2.6.25.y: Fix 32-bit x86 MSI-X allocation leakage

Resend now that this patch is in -upstream.

This bug was introduced in the 2.6.24 i386/x86_64 tree merge, where
MSI-X vector allocation will eventually fail. The cause is the new
bit array tracking used vectors is not getting cleared properly on
IRQ destruction on the 32-bit APIC code.

This can be seen easily using the ixgbe 10 GbE driver on multi-core
systems by simply loading and unloading the driver a few times.
Depending on the number of available vectors on the host system, the
MSI-X allocation will eventually fail, and the driver will only be
able to use legacy interrupts.